


The Third Precept

by chantefable



Category: A Circlet of Oak Leaves - Rosemary Sutcliff
Genre: Gen, Pining, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Regret, Unresolved Emotional Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-20
Updated: 2018-05-20
Packaged: 2019-05-09 12:22:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,823
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14715942
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chantefable/pseuds/chantefable
Summary: Felix has his own recollection of the battle of Trimontium and of what occurred between him and Aracos. He also has a lot of feelings on the matter.Or, opportunities lost can never be regained.





	The Third Precept

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Carmarthen](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Carmarthen/gifts).



  
“With man, most of his misfortunes are occasioned by man.”  
Pliny the Elder, Naturalis Historia, Book VII, sec. 5.

“It is a maxim universally agreed upon in agriculture,  
that nothing must be done too late; and again,  
that everything must be done at its proper season;  
while there is a third precept which reminds us  
that opportunities lost can never be regained.”  
Pliny the Elder, Naturalis Historia, Book XVIII, sec. 44.  


  
The acorn-bearing Pannonia haunts me.

In wintertime, its gloomy cool reaches for me with naked tree branches, eager and lurid like the hands of lost souls in the rivers of the underworld. It blinds me in springtime with the piercing blue of its skies and deafens with the pitiless swallow song; it gags me with the sweetness of its summer air, binds me with the rising stalks of wheat and barley. It grabs me by the throat in fall, icy mists like fingers pressing into my skin, and I say nothing, do nothing but bemoan my lost opportunities.

I should have lived a different life, as a different man.

They say that nothing must be done too late, neither the sowing of the seeds nor the fashioning of bee-hives. Nor will it do to begin sharpening the tip of your spear in the heat of battle. Nor must one speak the truth of one's heart too late, when even the most heartfelt words shall fall on barren land, arid with scorn and resentment.

And I know it must be true, as surely as I know the route from Sopianae to Siscia. Some precious chances are lost forever, because the right time to seize them is long past. All that remains is a sharp ache, like cutting your foot on a sharp stone on a mountain road, and all that one can do is keep marching on, bleeding.

They know that Felix is not afraid to bleed; I have been wounded more times in the past eight years than some of my fellow men nearing the end of their twenty-five years in the legions. Some of those wounds were worthy, meaningful, gained executing sound tactical decisions. Some were utterly foolish, like getting struck by an arrow during practice of some of our new auxiliary archers. I bleed, willingly, crimson painting whimsical patterns on my skin. Lately, our young medic scorns me for imprudence; he is far too careful not to call it indifference, but I can see the thoughts in his eyes. The young Dacian is unguarded and gentle, and I am loathe to let him see what truly plagues me. 

Let him think it is brashness and imprudence, and not the fact that I enjoy the liquid heat and the shapes unfurling on my skin, the proof that I am still alive and moving, not frozen with fear that knows no reason or relief, like then, at Trimontium.

Let him look at me with kind eyes, so similar to the eyes of the one I once held so dear, and touch me with hands as skilled and precise as Aracos' as he tends to yet another bleeding gash, and let him think me a callous ageing fool who fancies himself invincible. 

The truth is, I deserve to bleed.

I am sure that by now, every drop of blood I had carried in my veins on that day I had agreed to lie has been spilled. And that means others have taken their place, and I am full of nothing but lies, running through me and animating my battered body. It had pained me to acquiesce when Aracos asked me; why did I say yes?

(I never wished to say no to him, not for anything, but just then, I ought to have to refused, and been happier in my shame.)

By all rights, I am the progenitor of my own misfortune. Should I not be the master of it, free to command the extent of my pain? But regret stings harder than the marks of a vine-staff ever could, and festers worse than an untended wound. I am no master of my misfortune: I am its slave. And the years have shown that this _domina_ spares no ache or bitterness for me.

After all, everything must be done at its proper season: harvest and trade, horse-breeding and training. Everything happens when time wills it; the leaves of the mighty oaks of Pannonia turn green and vibrant in the spring and become tinged with bronze in fall. It is those months on the cusp of winter that are more difficult to bear, when the forests fill with slow, heavy whispers. The large lush tree branches rustle their brown-read leaves, and it is like everything in nature sneers at me and mocks me with harsh, inescapable reminders of the Corona Civica.

My _domina_ never lets me forget. In her service, I have become rigid, muscles tense in knots under my sun-burnt skin like bark, and the voice that some used to call pleasant knows little use but necessary commands and barest hint of conversation. My fellow men in Pannonia have pitied me these past years, saying that the award had come at a high price, that the battle at Trimontium had cut down my will to live. They never say this to my face, though. And I could hardly find the words to argue, anyway, for isn't that the truth?

It has been almost ten years since that fateful summer in Britannia. Now, I am on a completely different edge of the Empire, where the forest is green and endless as far as the eye can see, and warm wind wanders everywhere. If only it reminded me of anything but the colour of my friend's eyes, bright with fever and pent-up panic as he had stumbled back to me; if only it brought back anything than the feverish touch of his hands upon mine as we exchanged clothing, his hot breath against my ear as he spoke of what had happened to the cavalry. But every little thing increases the pressure of the vise around my heart, and nature itself is merciless. I hear the shortness of Aracos' breath in the crackle of the camp-fire; I see his eyes, wide and bright after the fight even though his vision is dimmed with exhaustion, in every brook and every damned puddle. 

And now, on the verge of summertime, when the earth is full and soft before the stomp of legionaries' feet beats it into submission, everything brings back memories of the anxiety and fear that had overcome me on that fateful day, my mindless abandon and desire for death – death that I had been powerless to seek. Everything brings back memories of Aracos, first vanishing and leaving me alone in the labyrinth of my fury and horror, trapped inside my own mind, and then coming back to me, with a face to rival a madman's, and reaching for me like Orpheus might have reached for Eurydice. He pulled me back from the terrifying depths of Hades, and I am not sure that he ever realised it. He had still been in the throes of battle, then, its fire running through him.

Has he understood after? Does he know it now? Does he know what he has done for me then?

And does he know what he has done _to_ me?

I am haunted by regret, and everything in Pannonia, from its steep hills to its giant oaks, seems to remind me of the enormity of my loss. Some Illyrians resemble Thracians, and in the beginning, even a slight resemblance to Aracos was enough to make me wretched. Now, whenever there are tradesmen coming to the fort I prefer to avoid them, lest I begin to seek reflections of a familiar face in the features of any Andizetes horse-trader. 

There are hundreds and hundreds of thousands paces between us now, and no one could ever replace him. 

The opportunity for friendship with him had been lost forever. I was a horrible fool to think that agreeing with Aracos would mean I had a chance at comradeship. And now I am an older fool who bleeds, and fights, and seeks to live up to another's honour.

Years ago, at my weakest, my worst, most vulnerable, I did exactly what Aracos had said: stayed back, and then stayed silent.

I dreamed of saying yes to him, and in a cruel twist of fate, the only chance I got was the one that made him slip away from me forever. I consented to the lie, the protection of keeping up appearances, when I myself would have preferred truth and shame, no matter how gruesome. But my life had not been mine to steer: that day, Aracos had held it in his hands and made the decision for me, passing for me and giving me the glory of rescuing the Roman force. And he forced me to accept it, and live with it.

Does he even know how cruel he has been? I often wonder whether he was fully aware of what he had done. Perhaps he, too, was lost in a labyrinth of his own then. Perhaps I shouldn't have listened – oh, I know I shouldn't have for my own sake, that _I_ wished to scream that I was nothing but a deserter lost in a terrible fugue state without the will to live or take another life, but I had heeded Aracos because he had held my life in his hands, and his decision had to be above my own. Perhaps… 

Perhaps I shouldn't have listened for _his_ sake. What if he did not truly want me to lie? What if he would have chosen truth as well? What if his refusal to allow me to come clean was not a sound, careful one, but merely a rash flare of anger, born out of the fury and terror of his own mind? I should have thought of it then. I think of little else now.

His contempt cut worse than anyone's ever could because I had, without him knowing, longed for so much more. The dead bronze leaves of the Corona Civica and its dull glory meant so little, while Aracos' opinion meant so much. He despised me, rightfully, and then, trapping me in a promise, allowed himself the freedom to despise me forevermore. 

Does he know what he has done? Does he enjoy his freedom to be cold and gloomy, bitter and resentful, and righteous, and justified in despising me, like on the day he had made the final decision for both of us? 

Or is he happy? I pray to all the gods that he at least got what he wanted. I pray, but hear nothing but the rough rustling of oak leaves in the breeze.

My misfortune is a cruel mistress, and I do not know how much longer I must wait until my manumission.

**Author's Note:**

> Gaius Plinius Secundus (23 AD – 79 AD): ancient Roman naval army commander, lawyer, provincial governor, author, natural philosopher, and friend of Emperor Vespasian
> 
> Pannonia: ancient province of the Roman Empire located over the territory of the present-day western Hungary, eastern Austria, northern Croatia, north-western Serbia, northern Slovenia, western Slovakia and northern Bosnia and Herzegovina
> 
> Siscia: capital of Pannonia Savia, now Sisak, Croatia
> 
> Sopianae: capital of Pannonia Valeria, now Pécs, Hungary
> 
> Andizetes: a tribe in Pannonia according to Pliny the Elder; possibly Illyrian


End file.
